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Not exactly. He could have taken the initiative even within the confines of the law. See his promotion to KoR. He chose not to. Instead he chose to take every crap assignment they gave him as a roundabout way to die, and even after being KoR makes hardly an effort to get ahead.

considering the character, that "sellout to become KoR" moment flustered to no end.

Not exactly. He could have taken the initiative even within the confines of the law. See his promotion to KoR. He chose not to. Instead he chose to take every crap assignment they gave him as a roundabout way to die, and even after being KoR makes hardly an effort to get ahead.

How was he not making an effort to get ahead when he went against his own morals and helped Schneizel take over part of Europe just so he could gain merit and one day become the knight of one?

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I cannot give you back your homes, or restore your dead to life, but perhaps I can give you justice, in the name of our King. ~ Ned Stark

Suzaku is like any other teenager with a strong body. He is still young, and unlike Lelouch, cannot see far ahead in the future, or be a good strategist. However, his loss, and ambivalent personalty, put him there for the right cause. His heart is in the right place, and he wanted to change Britannia from within. For an average person like Suzaku it is only reasonable to follow orders, and pretend that he can actually do something for the corruption of Britannia. Other than that, he is exceptional, and could have shined better in the Black Knights, rather than kissing royal ass for such a long time.

If I were royalty and Suzaku were my soldier, I would have given him lots of promotion for being loyal, and saving my ass, when I needed. He did that with Cornelia, and only Euphemia respected him. The rest of the royalty should have treated him better, because he was a valuable asset, with Lloyd's brilliant engineering.

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"It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end".
- Ursula Le Guin

Suzaku is like any other teenager with a strong body. He is still young, and unlike Lelouch, cannot see far ahead in the future, or be a good strategist. However, his loss, and ambivalent personalty, put him there for the right cause. His heart is in the right place, and he wanted to change Britannia from within. For an average person like Suzaku it is only reasonable to follow orders, and pretend that he can actually do something for the corruption of Britannia. Other than that, he is exceptional, and could have shined better in the Black Knights, rather than kissing royal ass for such a long time.

If I were royalty and Suzaku were my soldier, I would have given him lots of promotion for being loyal, and saving my ass, when I needed. He did that with Cornelia, and only Euphemia respected him. The rest of the royalty should have treated him better, because he was a valuable asset, with Lloyd's brilliant engineering.

At the start of the series Suzaku is a Private, which makes sense since he recently enlisted. When Cornelia comes to Japan she promotes him to Warrant Officer, so Suzaku skips 2 ranks. When he becomes Euphy's knight that year, he's promoted to MAJOR, skipping FOUR ranks. That is two significant promotions in the span of a year. Not to mention that at the end Cornelia makes him a real knight.

__________________

I cannot give you back your homes, or restore your dead to life, but perhaps I can give you justice, in the name of our King. ~ Ned Stark

Warrant Officer is the highest NCO rank in the army http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_military_ranks. CO's (2nd Lt. - 5 Star General/Field marshal) all have to be college educated + they have to take additional Military specific classes such as leadership, tactics, strategy etc etc. This makes Suzaku's promotion to Major even more laughable. I mean, the guy is a) in HIGH SCHOOL LOL b) terribad at tactics and strategy. Nobody in their right mind would follow Suzaku's orders. I mean, look at those poor guys he led to their dooms in a simple mopping up operation vs the black knights in R2...

A guy like Lelouch who is a genius I can see getting a direct commision to Colonel or even General, although I think this point is irrelevant since simply being a Prince gives him General-level command if not more...

__________________

I cannot give you back your homes, or restore your dead to life, but perhaps I can give you justice, in the name of our King. ~ Ned Stark

It's not like he was promoted due to his strategic genius. He was promoted because he was the only one that could operate Lancelot, and they couldn't have a newbie private using a one of a kind one man army machine, it would look bad in the paperwork. It was just for show.

Susaku was promoted to major?! Wow! That means he went from private skipped corporal and all the various sergant ranks to get to warrant officer but not CWO, THEN skipped 2 LT. and captain ranks?! And was Knighted by Corneilla. Hell I thought once you were a Knight that was that unless you somehow got nobility status.
On a personal note I thought Susaku got the short end of the stick although he tried to do it(rebel)the right way he was always #2 yet he always got in Lelouch's way,so he 'coulda been a contender' when actually he was! I hope if there is a new series he gets to finally shine!

Susaku was promoted to major?! Wow! That means he went from private skipped corporal and all the various sergant ranks to get to warrant officer but not CWO, THEN skipped 2 LT. and captain ranks?! And was Knighted by Corneilla. Hell I thought once you were a Knight that was that unless you somehow got nobility status.

Britannian ranks aren't necessarily the same as real-world ones. Also, Suzaku was the exception. He never got nobility, only "Honorary" status.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lost Cause

On a personal note I thought Susaku got the short end of the stick although he tried to do it(rebel)the right way he was always #2 yet he always got in Lelouch's way,so he 'coulda been a contender' when actually he was! I hope if there is a new series he gets to finally shine!

This is confusing. He didn't try to rebel. The whole point is that he saw rebelling as wrong. Also, he never stood a chance of achieving change, not until he actually decided to stop being a hypocrite and use Lelouch's methods.

Britannian ranks aren't necessarily the same as real-world ones. Also, Suzaku was the exception. He never got nobility, only "Honorary" status.

This is confusing. He didn't try to rebel. The whole point is that he saw rebelling as wrong. Also, he never stood a chance of achieving change, not until he actually decided to stop being a hypocrite and use Lelouch's methods.

Huh? I thuoght he was attempting to change Britannian policy from the inside out? Given time it might have worked,but Lelouch was making alot of trouble for them both(that and the fact they were childhood friends)but we'll never know now will we.
As to the rank thing alot of other posters were asking about the various ranks he might have skipped so I thought I'd just fill in the blanks that's all.

Britannian ranks aren't necessarily the same as real-world ones. Also, Suzaku was the exception. He never got nobility, only "Honorary" status.

I don't see why they wouldn't.
They probably just use the British system, where officers were mainly noblemen. If we check out most of the prominent commanders in Europe before the 1900s most of them, held some sort of nobility. You have dukes, counts, earls, princes, kings and even Emperors . Some famous ones are Arthur Wellesley, Napoleon, and Frederick the Great. These guys were duke, emperor and king respectively lol. That didn't mean that they didn't have military ranks. The same probably goes for people in CG. Cornelia before becoming Governor General of Area 11 was most likely a Field Marshal, but honestly if you are say 2nd prince of the empire, would you want to use a title like Field Marshal or General or 2nd Prince?

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I cannot give you back your homes, or restore your dead to life, but perhaps I can give you justice, in the name of our King. ~ Ned Stark

Huh? I thuoght he was attempting to change Britannian policy from the inside out? Given time it might have worked,but Lelouch was making alot of trouble for them both(that and the fact they were childhood friends)but we'll never know now will we.

To be perfectly blunt, "changing Britannia from within" was just something he said to make himself feel better about his real goal, but that's a different discussion.

Lelouch "making trouble" is the only reason Suzaku got anywhere. His success is solely mooched off of Lelouch, and in the absence of that he was nothing but cannon fodder. So no, it would never have worked, because he never had a chance of getting anywhere. Bismarck pretty much spells it out in Turn 20. No one trusted Suzaku, because he's a backstabber.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Revolutionist

I don't see why they wouldn't.
They probably just use the British system, where officers were mainly noblemen. If we check out most of the prominent commanders in Europe before the 1900s most of them, held some sort of nobility. You have dukes, counts, earls, princes, kings and even Emperors . Some famous ones are Arthur Wellesley, Napoleon, and Frederick the Great. These guys were duke, emperor and king respectively lol. That didn't mean that they didn't have military ranks. The same probably goes for people in CG. Cornelia before becoming Governor General of Area 11 was most likely a Field Marshal, but honestly if you are say 2nd prince of the empire, would you want to use a title like Field Marshal or General or 2nd Prince?

I wouldn't say that nobility automatically grants military rank. Surely the Ashfords would not have held military power, for example. Royalty would be an exception.

That's an interesting take on how Suzaku 'rose up the chain' so to speak. Haven't watched CG in a while(been busy buying the DVD's so I can marathon it some weekend). I'll definetly have to re-watch it, thanks.

This post actually seems slightly pointless out-of-context but yes, as noted in the Kallen thread: cross-posted here. Also noted there though that guh, I don't really feel like thinking for a while so maybe I'll regret this (lol). See you guys later.

Quote:

Originally Posted by azul120

Not loyalty to them on a political level, but he did have a history with them.

Not to mention that, from the big scope of things, it was Suzaku who betrayed Japan, not them. They were terrorists in the eyes of Britannia, WHO I must add forcibly occupied their country, and were secretly aiding its freedom. Now they may not have been civilians, but Suzaku still turned his back on him.

Afterthought: I guess it is different, in that it should be filed under turning against former friends/etc., like when he wouldn't ask for Kallen's forgiveness as he moved in for the kill against her in R2 6.

Flash back to Stage 19 for some Suzaku development on that issue.

Quote:

Originally Posted by morbosfist

Being honorable in battle is one thing, being (however justifiably) arrogant and making frankly unreasonable demands when before that your forces are losing is quite another. Suzaku could not have expected them to surrender, especially when this war means their very rights as humans are on the line. He just wanted to have the peace of mind of giving them the option. The commanders didn't sacrifice their men needlessly, they tried to take down an enemy unit that landed on their shores when they were winning that battle.

Such a ridiculous surrender request could never be expected to be accepted. And Suzaku is guilty of this fact more than once, demanding an entire army to retreat in the face of a never-before-seen weapon as a bluff. Unless he's genuinely that stupid, he's only saying it to justify killing people. He doesn't even get that benefit when he fights Kallen in Turn 18, firing in the middle of his request for her to move. That was outright trying to make her kill herself protecting Lelouch.

Anyway, the difference here is that Kallen doesn't delude herself about what she's doing. She kills people for her cause. She knows it. Suzaku tries to dress it up so he'll feel better about himself.

I don't really get where people get this 'Suzaku does stuff to make himself feel better' stuff when it's pretty clear he couldn't possibly consider himself more of a dirty sinner. (Also: the line azul brought up in Turn 6 is pretty much an explicit example of Suzaku refusing to dress up the fact that he is killing real people for his cause.)Screw whatever preconceptions those European generals' had of what constitutes a 'reasonable' battle; if the name of the Knight of Rounds' 'White Shinigami' doesn't speak enough for them, then they do deserve whatever consequences they get for not surrendering. I think one thing to remember when talking about Suzaku supposedly helping Britannia 'enslave' other countries is that, unlike the then present Britannia and Japan, Britannia and the E.U./C.F. are actually (perhaps intermittently, but certainly historically) at war. The fact is, in Code Geass it's pretty much a given that all governments are assholes anyway (go back to Lelouch and Suzaku's meeting in Picture Book 1/Stage 00 for an interesting idealogical reversal), so assuming and condemning Suzaku for enabling a 'political aggressor' like Britannia would be meaningless. Compromising with stuff like that is a fundamental assumption of 'working with the (any) system' in the first place.

Remember, Suzaku's goal is not 'get Britannia to stop conquering countries'. It's 'get Britannia to treat conquered countries well'; countries being conquered is not a detriment under this assumption.

Furthermore, speaking on Suzaku's contributions to Britannia 'enslaving' other countries in the style of Japan in general: unlike Japan, which was an independant nation, wherever it was Suzaku was fighting in Turn 4 (it was either Germany or Italy I think, but I can't remember) and more than likely anywhere else he took the field at was a part of one of the world's superpowers (the E.U. in this case). This is because, after gaining military dominance around the time of the invasion of Japan, Britannia had already had around 8 years to conquer any of the weaker individual nations left around which it was interested in. However, considering all the military/technological advancements Britannia had been acquiring recently, it was probably in an expansionary period, even beginning to gain ground directly against its rival superpowers. What this means is two things: first, given Britannia's much increased military potential, and given that it's recent gains are in areas much closer to the heart of it's rival superpowers, Britannia has much less incentive to consolidate/reform those areas than to convert them into staging grounds for further excursions or to use them as bargaining chips for direct negotiations. Second: given the influx of new technology, Britannia gained more room for growth/improvement so that less of its production capacity would be directed at satellite 'colonies' in the first place (I think you can see this in the state of Japan at the start of R2 for example--it is clearly not recovered from the Black Rebellion, and the general situation itself does not seem permanent or even sustainable). All this means that for me, the idea that Suzaku's contributions to Britannia's war effort would lead to anything remotely similar to new 'Area 11's is quite unlikely.

So let me get back to the point: as I see it, Suzaku had no reason whatsoever to feel guilty over crushing those armies, so I don't see why he'd feel the need to 'dress up' anything in the first place; and indeed, the fact that he offered them a chance to surrender at all does seem to me to have been honourable.

this was also on the kallen thread, but i figure would be better answered here

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sol Falling

edit: lol, yeah I suppose this is a bit more complicated than your version blade, but I don't think Suzaku ever thought about his cause in terms of legitimacy in the first place. I realize this will sound terribly ironic to you guys, but under the interpretation above, Suzaku helping Britannia conquer countries as a step on the way to 'getting Britannia to treat conquered countries better' could be construed as an example of Suzaku, like Lelouch, having a bit of a worldwide vision.

in season 2, Suzaku isn't aiming at "make britannia treate conquered countries better
that might have been the case in season 1

in season 2, its "help britannia conquer more countries, to earn the rank of KoO, so that HE could govern japan HIMSELF"
he's past changing britannia at that stage
he wants to be the one IN-CHARGE of how japan is being ran so that he can effect IT and ONLY IT

and the EU in code geass is like the EU in OUR world
where the countries are independent, but allied together through trade and military alliance to combat a greater threat
so yes, britannia conquering its countries is EXACTLY the same as conquering japan